We are on the final day of cooking French Cuisine. I know I picked up a simple dish, which practically didn’t look like cooking at all to me. However I have been want to make this shape and prepare exactly this way that I decided to make it for this theme.

Infact this was the first one I made when I decided on French Cuisine. My kids do not like dry fruits or nuts other than cashew nuts. So even in a chocolate, if its fruits and nuts, its not touched. Since I do not like cashews, most times those chocolates stay for a while.

However since we thought we should get them try these, we decided to get Konda initiated into the dry fruits. She said she won’t mind if I make the chocolates with these. So hubby dear that it was my task to get it done and that’s how this came into picture.

I was lucky that I remembered that this is a French specialty and I searched for it.

So wiki tells me that Mendiant is a confectionery originated from France. It has just two ingredients, chocolates and dried nuts and fruits.

Traditionally it was a chocolate disk
studded with nuts and dried fruits representing the four mendicant or
monastic orders of the Dominicans, Augustinians, Franciscans and
Carmelites. Each of the nuts and dried fruits used refer to the color of
monastic robes with tradition dictating raisins for the Dominicans,
hazelnut for the Augustins, dried fig for Franciscans and almond for
Carmelite.

Now this confection has moved away from the
traditional combination of nuts and fruits to other combinations
incorporating seeds, fruit peels and other items. And I could see
recipes using so many different combinations.

When I made this at
home, boys didn’t even touch it, while the entire batch was enjoyed by
Hubby dear and Konda. I used Dark chocolate along with roasted almonds,
raisins, walnuts and cashews.